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SOPA Is Bad, And You Should Fight It.

Today, heavyweights of the Internet are going black in protest of SOPA, a controversial bill currently doing things in the House Of Representatives. It threatens to up-end our precious series of tubes and change it forever. Instead of fumbling through the whats and whys, I’ll let Gizmodo do it for me.

What Is SOPA?

If you hadn’t heard of SOPA before, you probably have by now: Some of the internet’s most influential sites—Reddit and Wikipedia among them—are going dark to protest the much-maligned anti-piracy bill. But other than being a very bad thing, what is SOPA? And what will it mean for you if it passes?

SOPA is an anti-piracy bill working its way through Congress…

House Judiciary Committee Chair and Texas Republican Lamar Smith, along with 12 co-sponsors, introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act on October 26th of last year. Debate on H.R. 3261, as it’s formally known, has consisted of one hearing on November 16th and a “mark-up period” on December 15th, which was designed to make the bill more agreeable to both parties. Its counterpart in the Senate is the Protect IP Act (S. 968). Also known by it’s cuter-but-still-deadly name: PIPA. There will likely be a vote on PIPA next Wednesday; SOPA discussions had been placed on hold but will resume in February of this year.

Long story short, SOPA (and its brother, the Senate’s PIPA bill) can and will ruin this beautiful beast we call the Internet if it passes. We, the people, have a duty to not let that happen. Click on over to SOPA Strike to get in on that action and see who else is involved.

Also, there’s a post on Lifehacker detailing tools and methods to stay abreast of developments surround the two bills. At the very least, use SOPA Track to find out how your congresspeople have affiliated themselves in this fight.

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